How to make performance reviews less terrible — even for remote employees

And many seem to outright hate or fear them. The figures were even higher for younger workers. I am a professor ofindustrial-organizational psychology, a field that conducts scientific studies to better understand the workplace. Here are three challenges that I believe employers and their employees will face and ways to overcome them. It’s free, every week, in your inbox. One of the biggest challenges involves the difficulty of creating a connection with your boss....

May 26, 2022 · 2 min · 336 words · Veronica King

How to stop annoying cookie pop-ups from ruining your browsing

The road to hell is paved with good intentions or, as you may call them, cookie pop-ups. The warnings have scarred the internet sincethe EU made them mandatoryfor most sites. Lawmakers were understandably concerned about companies tracking users as they browse the web. The notifications are their attempt to protect our privacy. Well, thanks I hate them. It’s free, every week, in your inbox. There are, however, tools that block and bypass the ubiquitous warnings of these trackers....

May 26, 2022 · 2 min · 322 words · Dustin Johnson

Moneybags Musk won’t use Tesla shares to secure financing for his Twitter acquisition

He declared the expiry of margin loans ina new filingwith the Security and Exchanges Commission (SEC). He used Tesla shares as collateral to get $12.5 billion as a loan. It’s free, every week, in your inbox. After securing this money, Musk cut his Tesla shares-backed loan in half to $6.25 billion. Now, the Tesla CEO is committed to providing $33.5 billion through equity financing. A report by CNBC notes thatMusk is talking with Twitter co-founder Jack Dorseyamongst others to provide additional funding....

May 26, 2022 · 1 min · 172 words · Patricia Smith

OnePlus’ sub-$40 Nord Buds are an impulse purchase you won’t regret

Last year, more than300 million truly wireless earbuds (TWS)were shipped worldwide. While Apple is the leading company in the sector with its AirPods, they cost more than $150. This is the segment OnePlus wants to dominate with its sub-$40 Nord Buds. Heres what you get for not very much money. It’s free, every week, in your inbox. The OnePlus Nord Buds are housed in a pill-shaped case. However, the case is large and creates a bulge in your pocket....

May 26, 2022 · 2 min · 411 words · Kelly Wells

OpenAI punished dev who used GPT-3 to ‘resurrect’ the dead — was this fair?

However, theethics of machine learningremains blurry for many. It’s free, every week, in your inbox. This is why it is important to address the ethical questions raised by the case, step by step. Is Barbeaus consent enough to develop Jessicas deadbot? Even when they die, people are not mere things with which others can do as they yo. What if it was degrading to her memory? The limits of consent are, indeed, a controversial issue....

May 26, 2022 · 1 min · 128 words · Denise Turner

Tech industry groups are watering down attempts at privacy regulation, one state at a time

It’s free, every week, in your inbox. I introduced the bill as that. Its common for industries to lobby lawmakers on issues affecting their business. Microsoft declined to comment for this story, while Apple and Amazon didnt respond to requests for comment. Google and Facebook both distanced themselves from the industry groups that they are members of. Protocol was thefirst to reportthat connection. The industrys influence over the language didnt stop there....

May 26, 2022 · 2 min · 357 words · Taylor Garrett

The UAE’s AI minister wants ‘murder’ in the metaverse to be a real crime

Upfront:There is no medical threshold by which PTSD occurs.Clinical diagnosisinvolves observation and interviews with a medical professional. Anecdotally speaking, PTSD isnt necessarily triggered in the manner which Al Olama indicated. Other peoples diagnosis have come after entirely different experiences. Deeper:You cant murder an avatar. At least not in the legitimate legal sense. Lets say, 10 years from now, youre wandering around in Metas version of the metaverse. Your avatar bleeds out and dies....

May 26, 2022 · 2 min · 249 words · Mitchell Gutierrez

Apple is finally forcing mobile devs to let you delete your app account easily

If your core app functionality is not related to a specific social internet (e.g. Facebook, WeChat, Weibo, Twitter, etc. ), you must provide access without a login or via another mechanism. It provided a deadline of January 31, 2022, for developers to tweak their apps. It’s free, every week, in your inbox. Notably, app makers cant allow just a temporary deactivation option. The company said they need to delete the entire account record, along with associated personal data....

May 25, 2022 · 1 min · 126 words · Brian Butler

Big hair and glasses make good headphones sound bad — here’s what you can do

Headphones dont like my hair. Thats an unfortunate truth for someone who has spent half of his lifebeingalittleobsessedwithheadphones. Its a bigger problem than you might think and we can measure it. It’s free, every week, in your inbox. I first noticed this problem back in 2018 whiletesting a pair of high-end noise-canceling headphones. I was still ready to declare the headphones junk until I got my hair cut to a neat fade....

May 25, 2022 · 3 min · 509 words · Drew Gates

Electric mobility is hot, but its lithium-ion batteries are burning

The car lost power, locked him inside, and started filling up with smoke. The problem is big. And its getting worse as more and more devices rely on lithium-ion batteries. I wanted to better understand the problem, so Ive spoken to battery scientists, engineers, and experts. Ive also interviewed several companies that offer a range of solutions to prevent fires from starting. It’s free, every week, in your inbox. To be clear, my core focus is on lithium-ion battery fires in escooters, ebikes, and emopeds....

May 25, 2022 · 2 min · 331 words · Joshua Gilbert

Google takes on OpenAI with flashy text-to-image generator

TheAIimagery competition is getting personal. Googlethis week unveiled a new challenger toOpenAIsvauntedDALLE-2text-to-image generator and took shots at its rivals efforts. Both models convert text prompts into pictures. But Googles researchers claim their system provides unprecedented photorealism and deep language understanding. Human raters preferred Imagen over DALLE-2 for both sample quality and image-text alignment. Credit: Saharia et al.The cringingly-named Imagen system uses a large pre-trained language model as a text encoder....

May 25, 2022 · 2 min · 278 words · Jacob Rosario

How fintech startups can help the underserved and make a profit

Working as a tech journo, I meet many people with big, world-changing ideas. This week I had the pleasure of talking to Michael Schlein, President, and CEO atAccion. Accion is a global nonprofit committed to creating a financially inclusive world. It’s free, every week, in your inbox. Accion has been around for over 60 years with a legacy in microfinance andfintechimpact investing. Even worse, the 2.8% figure was an all-time high....

May 25, 2022 · 2 min · 299 words · Destiny Glenn

NASA taps into the magic of diffraction to build solar sailing spacecraft

Sails have propelled earthlings across the seas for millennia, butNASAbelieves their future is off-world. Thespaceagency has unveiled plans to develop a new solar sail system for a demonstration mission. It’s free, every week, in your inbox. Indeed, variations of the technique have already reaped results. In 2010, a Japanese probe calledIkarosbecame the first craft tosuccessfully use the tech in space. NASA later unfurleda solar sail of its ownwhile orbiting Earth....

May 25, 2022 · 2 min · 224 words · Sandra White